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'We shouldn't have had Eduardo 'paranoia''

By Richard Clarke

Arsène Wenger feels the “diving” case against Eduardo was fuelled by media attention.

The Croatian striker was initially banned by UEFA for two games after “deceiving the referee” against Celtic on August 26. However this week that decision was annulled after a successful appeal by the Club.

It was a welcome reverse for Wenger, who was short of attacking options for the trip to Liege on Wednesday. But, in a wider context, the manager felt that overturning the original decision was correct because his player had been ‘singled out’ for special attention by television and the press.

“I am very happy we have Eduardo back because we have plenty of offensive players who are out,” he said at his press conference ahead of the Liege game.

“We had appealed because we thought we were in the right.

“This case was suddenly the highlight of the whole media in Europe,” he went on. “But you know the media can be like that.

“Sometimes they choose somebody and they say ‘let’s do him’ and everybody jumps on the wagon. It is like that and you have to deal with it but that doesn’t mean that we have to deal with paranoia.

“It became an extremely attractive [story] but, as I always said from the start, they hadn't chosen the right case.

“However, at the same time, people have to accept this does not change anything to do with diving at all.

“In this case, it was not clear enough to convict Eduardo but we still have to fight against diving all together.”

Copyright 2016 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source

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